Love it or hate it: KUSC's refreshed musical mix

Originally published in Current, Jan. 26, 1996

By Jacqueline Conciatore

With its experiment in classical music programming during the past five years or so, KUSC-FM in Los Angeles has inspired strong reactions. Now, it's doing more of what some listeners love and others simply hate:

• more music that falls outside the traditional classical canon--Duke Ellington, Loreena McKennit, the Latin American group Ensemble Gurrufio.
• more music hosts who sound like Bonnie Grice--lively, enthusiastic and not at all puffy.

The station's revised format, which debuted Jan. 2 [1996], responds in part to listener criticisms that its programming was so unpredictable as to leave them uncertain what station they were hearing at any given time. The recent departure of two hosts, Tom Crann and Gene Parrish, has allowed KUSC to fashion a more consistent and recognizable sound with deejays whose style is akin to Grice's, says General Manager Wally Smith. Also, KUSC will now feature eclectic playlists all day, whereas its daytime hours in recent years would veer from more-or-less traditional shows like Bob and Bill to Grice's semi-radical blends. As Program Director Steve Lama puts it: "It will be more consistent variety."

More than anything, however, the recent changes are another step in the evolution of a station that's trying to redefine and save the life of classical music. "The biggest crisis facing public broadcasting and the arts is not money, but audiences," says Smith. "We're trying to create audiences for KUSC, classical music and art. If we're successful in doing that, we'll be all right."

Smith says his unorthodox approach to programming is a response to demographic reality. Southern California is a mecca of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity--a harbinger of things to come for the entire country--and public radio has an obligation to reflect that. "We know there are large communities of Thai, Chinese, Cambodian, Jewish, and Turkish, Bolivian, Argentinian, Mexican, African-American [people]," he says. "It's a huge international community, and anybody who doesn't take that into consideration isn't paying attention to what their audience base will be for the future. It's a practical as well as visionary mission for the future."

KUSC is also responding to the aging of classical music's audience. Unlike some music programmers, Smith and Lama don't believe the next generation will fill those empty concert-hall seats, in large part because many schools have abandoned arts education. Therefore, they argue, it's imperative to remove barriers to classical music on radio: snooty presentations with musical esoterica that uninitiated audiences don't appreciate.

That's why listeners hear things on KUSC they're not likely to encounter on traditional classical stations. Crann once played actualities from the Apollo 13 space mission; opera host Duffy Murphy gave listeners updates on O.J. Simpson's white Bronco ride; Grice plays Frank Zappa every now and then, and occasionally talks sports.

These on-air hosts aren't "background people," says Smith. "They are as important to what we do as is the music. Their opinions, personalities--all on-air behavior is intended to be visible." Personality radio is good radio, he argues. Just look at the popularity of today's talk show hosts or pioneers like Arthur Godfrey and Jack Benny.

Of course, some critics question the prominent positioning of one KUSC personality--Grice, who is also Smith's spouse. Grice is quite active herself in promoting music and the arts--she often has children co-host her program, makes visits to L.A. schools, and in 1993 waged an on-air campaign against proposed cuts of arts education funding in California. Grice also inserts live studio interviews with such big-name artists as diva Cecilia Bartoli.

The degree to which she obviously shares Smith's vision leads some to question her influence on the course of KUSC's programming. What does account for KUSC's extraordinary commitment to its values? Lama says the origins and drive behind KUSC's experiment are all Smith's. "Wally is an incredible visionary," he says. "I call Wally the Miles Davis of public radio. He's constantly changing, constantly looking forward. And fearless. If we do more [than other stations], it's because of that."

Is it working?

While few people in the arts and public radio question the merit of Smith's goals, some do question whether his approach is working. One programmer acknowledges the need to recognize diversity and the desire to serve one's community. "But the real question is, does the audience like it?"

During a period when the public radio system's average quarter hour (AQH) audience was increasing nationwide, KUSC's AQH declined. Although a comprehensive sequence of ratings was not available to Current, KUSC cited ratings from two books, which show the station's AQH dropping from 17,700 in winter 1989--when KUSC was beginning its eclectic programming--to 14,300 in winter '95.

But Smith and Lama say the numbers overall have been fairly flat, especially cumulative audiences over the course of a week. KUSC's cume went from 364,300 in winter '89 to 331,200 in winter '95. Earlier, while KUSC was the only classical station in town, its ratings were much higher: in fall 1989, the station drew a cume of 600,000.

Smith doesn't believe Arbitron estimates are worth much, however. "Last quarter we were 10th in the country and considered below [L.A. public radio stations] KCRW and KLON," he says. But the next Arbitron book showed KUSC ahead of the two, he says. "It just vacillates too wildly."

Smith and Lama say they value more than Arbitron books the anecdotal evidence that their programming has some appeal--listener letters and calls, or a clear boost in ticket sales to an event the station promotes, for example. In one day, for example, KUSC helped move almost 500 half-off season subscriptions to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, says Smith.

The station's subscriber base is also up, probably by 3,000 or 4,000 in the last two years, according to Smith. The station also saw a 23 percent growth in revenue in fiscal '95, much of that due to membership increases. Smith estimates the station now has about 25,000 members. But it's not known whether KUSC is attracting the new audiences it's seeking, although Smith says membership rolls are showing new zip codes and more non-European surnames. KUSC claims the largest Hispanic audience in the public radio system.

All of these indicators, however, aren't capable of measuring what KUSC is really trying to do, which is "make a difference," Smith argues. "People are actually going to concerts as a result of what we tell them to do," he says. How do you measure the value of kids becoming pen pals with program hosts? he asks. Or teachers and parents adopting the station as their own? Or people who were once intimidated by classical music, now claiming it as their own? People aren't going to make note of those effects in an Arbitron diary, he argues.

Liver and sweets on one plate

If ratings don't show that KUSC's approach to programming is growing audience, there is other evidence of a certain kind of success: KUSC is good at selling records.

The station "is our top seller," says Linda Singh, marketing manager of the Public Radio Music Source (PRMS), Minnesota Public Radio's telemarketing service that broadcasters promote in exchange for a commission on sales. During a 1995 Grice interview with McKennit, PRMS sold 902 of the artist's CDs. "From one station, that's just amazing," says Singh. On a normal day, she says, the Source will sell 700 units for 300 stations. Singh estimates that KUSC accounts for 10 to 20 percent of Source calls; Smith says his station earned between $90,000 and $100,000 in PRMS sales in 1995, meaning it facilitated about $1 million in tape and disc sales.

Some say the high sales reflect a lot of plugging CDs on the air. But Singh believes the sales are due to KUSC's freshness. Listeners will buy CDs on impulse, she says; impulses just aren't triggered by a Brahms symphony released years ago. "KUSC, rather than play a Vivaldi 'Four Seasons' that was done 10 years ago, they'll play [a rendition by violinist] Gil Shaham. A lot of stations that play rotations, they don't realize that for the listener, a new interpretation is inviting." CD sales are one indicator listeners are using the radio for more than background melodies, she says.

So, the defense of KUSC's approach to programming music is long and multifaceted, but the negative criticisms tends to be short and barbed. "I think it's crap," says Martin Bernheimer, a Los Angeles Times classical music critic known for his acerbity. The complaints are also imbued with a sense that KUSC is betraying the very thing it wants to save, classical music. "[KUSC's managers] must know financially and socioeconomically what they want to do. But they have destroyed the one remaining serious classical music station we had in Los Angeles," Bernheimer says.

It's not that the nontraditional music is necessarily second-rate, he argues. Rather, KUSC's playlists are "indiscriminate, and the mixes make no sense whatsoever," he says. "You can say marshmallows are wonderful, and they are, and crepes suzettes are wonderful, and they are, and liver and onions are wonderful, but that doesn't mean they should all be on same plate."

Peter Hemmings, general director of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, credits KUSC for promoting arts and cultural events in the city, and for its weekly Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. But he also says the station's musical choices are "irritating" and that he only listens to KUSC for the Met, drivetime news, and host Jim Svejda, who has a more traditional approach. "I don't really feel it's a classical music station," says Hemmings. "If it's not going to be, then say so."

In fact, on Jan. 2 KUSC dropped its "New Sound of Classical Music" slogan and became "Classic 91.5." "We really are defining a different format. 'Classical,' is a category people use to pigeon-hole a station," says Smith. The new format is still classical-dominant, however; on any given day, 60 percent of the playlist will be traditional Western European classical, down from about 80 percent in recent years, according to Lama, the program director.

Other criticism is aimed at KUSC's presentational style, which is informal and, by classical radio standards, even rambunctious. Some might find that refreshing, but not everyone. Says one programmer about Grice: "She stops and gives baseball scores and says, 'That's the way to go!' and starts clapping. It's out of control."

Bernheimer accuses the hosts of falling into a "gee whiz, gushing" posture towards the music they're playing, while the gentler Hemmings says the hosts tend toward corniness. The latter admits he prefers the old style, when a host follows a concerto or symphony with "a proper program note, erudite and somewhat pompously presented."

Finally, there are criticisms that dismiss KUSC's fondness for less-known Third World and female composers as excessive political correctness. Says Larry Josephson, an independent radio producer who has worked in Los Angeles as well as New York City: "I don't want to hear what could be called 'PC classical music.' "

"When you start to pick music for political reasons," Josephson continues, "for ideological reasons, you run into serious problems. You run into neo-Stalinism, where aesthetics are governed by ideology ... There's not necessarily any aesthetic correlation [between politics and quality]."

Smith bristles at the suggestion his vision is purely ideological. "Anybody who dismisses this as multiculturalism is simply frightened by the reality of what's happening in the world. [They're] dismissing and patronizing the people and musical achievement of ... other cultures by claiming it's not worthy of being played alongside of the vaunted music of the Western [tradition]. And I'm saying 'alongside of,' not 'instead of.' And it's not political. You come here and walk down the street with me [and see the diversity]. I want to honor that. I want to celebrate that richness."

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